Lec1-Introduction

Muhammad Hanif
Introduction

 How many interactive products are there in everyday use?

 How many are actually easy, effortless, and enjoyable to
use?
 Interactive design is about developing interactive products
that are easy, effective, and enjoyable to use-from the
users' perspective.
Interactive Products

 Following must all be true for a product to be successful;

 useful – accomplish what is required, depend on its

functionalities. E.g. play music, cook dinner, format a
document;
 usable – do it easily and naturally, without danger of
error, etc.;
 used – make people want to use it, be attractive,
engaging, fun, etc.
Human Computer Interaction

 Designing interactive computing systems that

support people to carry out their activities easily,
efficiently and safely.
Imagine the following scenario.
You're staying at a hotel for a week while on a business trip. You discover you have
left your cell (mobile) phone at home so you have to rely on the hotel's facilities.
The hotel has a voice-mail system for each room.
To find out if you have a message, you pick up the handset and listen to the tone. If
it goes "beep beep beep" there is a message. To find out how to access the
message you have to read a set of instructions next to the phone.
You read and follow the first step:
1. Dial “491".
The system responds, "You have reached the Sunny Hotel voice message center.
Please enter the room number for which you would like to leave a message.“
You wait to hear how to listen to a recorded message. But there are no further
instructions from the phone. You look down at the instruction sheet again and
read:
 Imagine the following scenario.
"2. Dial*, your room number, and #". You do so and the system replies,
"You have reached the mailbox for room 106. To leave a message type in your
password."
You type in the room number again and the system replies, "Please enter room
number again and then your password."
You don't know what your password is. You thought it was the same as your room
number. But clearly not. At this point you give up and call reception for help.
The person at the desk explains the correct procedure for recording and listening
to messages. This involves typing in, at the appropriate times, the room number
and the extension number of the phone (the latter is your password, which is
different from the room number). Moreover, it takes six steps to access a message
and five steps to leave a message. You go out and buy a new cell phone.
Good and poor design – voice-mail

 What is problematic with the voice-mail system?

 It is annoying.
 It is confusing.
 It is inefficient, requiring you to carry out a number of steps for basic
tasks.
 It is difficult to use.
 It has no means of letting you know at a glance whether any messages
have been left or how many there are. You have to pick up the
handset to find out and then go through a series of steps to listen to
them.
 It is not obvious what to do: the instructions are provided partially by
the system and partially by a card beside the phone.
What to design

 It is important to take into account where it is

going to be used and who is going to use it.

 Another key concern is understanding the kind of

activities people are doing when interacting
with the products.
An understanding of the users

 Taking into account what people are good and bad at

 Considering what might help people with the way they
currently do things
 Thinking through what might provide quality user
experiences
 Listening to what people want and getting them involved
in the design
 Using "tried and tested" user-based techniques during the
design process
Activity 1

 How does making a phone call differ when using:

a public phone box
a cell phone?

 How have these devices been designed to take into account

 (a) the kind of users
 (b) type of activity being supported
 (c) context of use?
Who is involved in HCI?

 psychology and cognitive science - knowledge of the user’s

perceptual, cognitive and problem-solving skills
 Ergonomics - for the user’s physical capabilities
 Sociology - Understand the wider context of the interaction
 computer science and engineering - To be able to build the
necessary technology
 Business - to be able to market it
 Graphic - design to produce an effective interface presentation
 We concentrate particularly on computer science,
psychology and cognitive science as core subjects,
and on their application to design; other
disciplines are consulted to provide input where
relevant.
History and Evolution of HCI

 Early days of computing

1960s
 Computers were very
expensive
 Computers had little
functionality
 The UI was unimportant
History and Evolution of HCI

 Early 1970s
 Field of ‘Man Machine
Interface’(MMI) emerged
 Term changed gradually to
‘User Interface’(UI)
 Ideas for first ‘Graphical User
Interface’(GUI)
 Dynabook at Xerox in 1968
History and Evolution of HCI

 Late 1970s and Early

1980s
 Products were called ‘user
friendly’
 No science in this: Just a
market buzzword
 First real GUI’s developed
 Apple Macintosh in 1984
History and Evolution of HCI

 Late 1980s
 Term ‘Human-Computer
Interaction’ (HCI) came into
use
 MS-Windows, X-Windows
followed the Mac
History and Evolution of HCI

 1990s and early 2000s

 Virtual reality and speech I/O
Current Trends
Current Trends
Current Trends
Gesture Recognition
Touchless Control
What’s Next?
Good and Bad Designs
Bad Design Example 1

 We may have high-tech flat

panel TVs in the 21st century,
but we still have to contend
with confusing button naming.
 The salvation for family
members using this TV remote
was to attach labels that made
sense out of P.Size, S.Mode and
P.Mode.
Bad Design Example 2

 These delightful names

were chosen for the
folders on a digital
camera's memory card.
 Wouldn't names such as
Still, Moving, Audio, and
Email be slightly more to
the point?
Bad Design Example 3

 Quite common on inexpensive

remotes, the Power On/Off
button is next to function
buttons, such as the Stop
button on this DVD control.
 Also common are all the
buttons jammed together in a
uniform, columnar matrix so
that it is impossible to quickly
press a button by feel in a dark
room.
Finally a Good Design
Another Good Design: iPod

 Much of the iPod's

enormous success is
attributed to its simple
user interface, which is
controlled entirely by the
click wheel.
Importance of HCI
Nuclear Power Point Control
Three-Mile Island Nuclear Disaster

 In America, 1979
 Improperly located displays/controls obscured
key components from one another.
 Conflicting feedback messages prevented
technicians from understanding what was
happening and reacting quickly in the
appropriate manner.
US Navy shot down Iranian Jet
US Navy shot down Iranian Jet

 Critical information about the plane was on different

displays
 When gathering relevant facts from different places, a
wrong match was made
 In 1996, US paid $61.8 million as compensation
Plane Cockpit and Control Unit
Airplane Accident in Athens

 In Greece 2005, 121 lives

lost
 Same alarm signal was used for
different purposes
 Technicians and pilots did not
realize that a lever crucial for
oxygen delivery was in the
wrong position
UI Can Change World History

 Nothing could better

highlight the importance
of a user interface than
the US Presidential
election of 2000
Interfaces that Kill….

 http://www.asktog.com/columns/027InterfacesThatKill.html
References

 Preece Chapter 1
 Alan dix Chapter 1